"We are losing our land": Sri Lankan MP highlights Tamil community concerns during visit

Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], December 20(ANI): Sri Lankan MP Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, General Secretary of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC), has raised urgent concerns about the situation facing the Tamil community in Sri Lanka during his visit to Tamil Nadu.
Ponnambalam told ANI that the purpose of his visit to Tamil Nadu is to meet with leaders of political parties.
He further described the situation facing the Tamil people as both "grave and urgent." He emphasised that the international perception of peace following the end of the civil war in 2009 masks a deeper, ongoing crisis of displacement and cultural erasure.
"The purpose of our visit to Tamil Nadu is to meet with all the leaders of political parties in Tamil Nadu and with leading non-partisan civil society leaders and to brief them with regard to the grave and urgent situation that the Tamil people face," Ponnambalam stated.
The Jaffna legislator highlighted what he termed "colonisation projects" aimed at shifting the demographic balance of traditional Tamil-speaking regions.
He argued that these efforts are not merely administrative but are designed to systematically transform Tamil areas into Sinhalese-majority regions.
"We are losing our land. Colonisation projects are taking place where Tamil-speaking areas are being systematically demographically changed into Sinhalese areas," he said.
According to Ponnambalam, this transformation extends to the cultural and religious landscape. He accused the Sri Lankan state of weaponising archaeology to justify the destruction of Hindu heritage sites in favour of Buddhist structures.
"Culturally, our identity is being changed. Several temples, Hindu temples are being destroyed and Buddhist viharas are being built on the basis that those Hindu temples were actually Buddhist and that the Tamils have destroyed ancient Buddhist sites and therefore now they are reclaiming, which is a complete lie," Ponnambalam remarked.
Beyond cultural and land rights, the MP criticised successive administrations--including the current government--for failing to address the economic devastation left by decades of conflict. He argued that the refusal to officially recognise the North and East as "war-affected" has stifled the recovery of the local population.
"And after the end of the war, it's been 16, 17 years, there has been no government, including the present government, that has understood the grave situation, the economic situation of the war-affected people," he noted.
Ponnambalam further contended that the state has neglected to implement necessary "protectionism" or targeted economic policies to bridge the wealth gap between the war-torn regions and the rest of the country.
"They have not recognised that it is a war-affected area. They have not done any protectionism to try and bring those people's economic power on par with the rest of the country," he added. (ANI)